To think more emphasis needs to be placed on what is appropriate to say to childless people

[ChocoCrocc]

The following are pretty much weekly occurrences for me:

'When will you be having kids then?'
'Do you not want kids?'
'When you have kids...'
'Ugh, you're so lucky, they're such hard work'

My boss will quite often ask me if I'm pregnant if I go in and ask to speak to her about something or if I say I'm feeling unwell in a sort of jokey way.

In actual fact I'm suffering terribly with recurrent miscarriages and may never have a living child.

AIBU to think that the above sort of questioning of people who are practically strangers needs to stop and people need to be pulled up more when they do it?

I appreciate that people in my situation have a heightened sensitivity to this sort of thing but I feel like I shouldn't need to explain my situation to everyone who asks me these things (which I don't do anyway as it just seems awkward and private).

Miscarriage and other fertility issues are not uncommon!

YANBU! People very rarely think before speaking.

I recall a similar thread on here last year where someone said that child free couples could enjoy having cream carpets. That caused a lot of upset (it wasn’t meant maliciously, but still). It showed how important it is to be circumspect. Yanbu OP.

I must admit if asked I just say it’s really none of your business and am blunter with immediate family. I also tell people it’s none of their business if I overhear a conversation. I just find it incredibly rude

Thanks for starting this thread. I completely agree. I’m 35, single and childless and trying to accept the fact that it’s unlikely to happen for me. At the moment I cannot seem to enjoy an evening out, go to a hobby or even a Dr’s appointment without being interrogated;

Aren’t you married? Why not? Have you never been married? Do you think you might be asexual? Do you think you might be gay and not know it? Don’t you like children? Don’t you want children? Don’t you think you’ve left it too late for children? Do you not understand you can’t afford to be picky? Do you think your standards might be too high?

I seem to end up crying after every night out at the moment. I’m just trying to live my life as best as I can and take my mind off of all the pain. Each period feels like a little death of something. But I can’t escape from all the comments.

I’m honest with them. I tell them I am very much straight and interested in sex but that I’ve never had the opportunity to marry or have children with anyone because no one wanted to settle down with me. I tell them I’m trying to save every penny so I can adopt. I explain that my abusive ex announced just before my 31st birthday that he never wanted marriage and kids but that he’s about to marry someone else. I tell them I struggle to trust that anyone will ever want me now and that I’m scared of being hurt again. I explain I’m not too fussy and that the catalogue of abusive people through my entire life should prove that. I explain that I’ve been in counselling for the past 3 years to overcome all the abuse.

It doesn’t stop the comments.

Even the Dr I saw about my gynae/hormone problems had to comment.

“Oh dear Sylvia, something’s gone wrong with this young lady. No man has put a ring on her finger.”

To which his secretary looked me up and down and said “I expect your too picky!”

Great attitude when you’ve paid to see someone privately to see realistically if your going to be able to conceive and carry a child and how long, if any time, you’ve got left.

I just don’t see why people feel so entitled to interrogate people in such a personal way. Are people so blinkered to not be able to imagine for a second that there are other reasons for not having children than not wanting them or “forgetting” to conceive? Just because life worked out in a perfect cookie cutter way for them , it doesn’t mean it does for everyone.

They need to stop.

Even the Dr I saw about my gynae/hormone problems had to comment.

“Oh dear Sylvia, something’s gone wrong with this young lady. No man has put a ring on her finger.”

To which his secretary looked me up and down and said “I expect your too picky!”

That is disgusting! I would have had to complain. How fucking rude.

I just don’t see why people feel so entitled to interrogate people in such a personal way. Are people so blinkered to not be able to imagine for a second that there are other reasons for not having children than not wanting them or “forgetting” to conceive? Just because life worked out in a perfect cookie cutter way for them , it doesn’t mean it does for everyone.

I agree Eleanor. There are a multitude of ways of being childless other than couldn’t have them/didn’t want them.

It's so uncomfortable, the questions make me genuinely dread and avoid certain situations. It's so painful for me, but people dont think. It's so difficult to know how to respond, if I'm at all honest (actually all my health problems y know the ones that clearly impact on all the other areas of my life too would make it too difficult) it just feels massively uncomfortable for them as much as me and I either have to defend my stance from 'aww well am sure you'd manage' type responses which makes me feel like if I really wanted it that much I'd make it happen OR I have to reassure them.. 'oh it's ok, just life isn't it' Theres no room for my feelings in there at all.

Are people so blinkered to not be able to imagine for a second that there are other reasons for not having children than not wanting them or “forgetting” to conceive

It's my experience that all of the issues relating to having children are treated this way - also things like what childcare and education your kids receive, whether you work post-kids and if so, where and for how long, whether you breastfeed or not and for how long, whether you have a vaginal birth or c section - all of these are talked about in wider society as if they were a set of consequence-free consumer choices, as if we all had perfect control over what options are available to us and choose between them like choosing the colour of a new fucking handbag. I think it's a measure of the misogyny still present in our societies that women's "choices" are represented this way. There's an absence of recognition that, like men, like people which is what we are, we make choices rationally and within constraints that are often different for each woman. You know like in my case, I became a SAHM because DH got made redundant and couldn't find a job in the UK so we came out to Germany - and at the age of 40, having recently changed career, with 2 small children, no local childcare and a less than perfect grasp of the language I was pretty much unemployable. Yet when other people ask me what I'm up to I get all this stuff back either attacking or supporting my "position" that SAHMming is the right thing to do. And I'm like, I didn't choose to do this! DH got made redundant! I understand why women want to feel like they are in control of their own lives but we're not, everyone is vulnerable to facts of economy and biology and in this less than equal society we live in, women even more so. And I think that pretending that we all have perfect control trivialises the difficult decisions that women have to make.

YANBU. And you should not be put in a situation where you feel the need to explain yourself.

I am lucky to have DS - I had an operation on my ovaries prior and was told I would most likely never conceive, and if I did it would be IVF and even then the chances were slim. And I was so fucking miserable and sad and every person I told would just say stupid shit like “doctors are wrong all the time” and “this doctor is talking nonsense”, and just push my fears to the side. I’m sure DS was a fluke and worry about having a second but of course get all the same irritating flippant comments. It’s really annoying and that’s nothing compared to what you are going through so I sympathise completely. It’s not good enough for people to “not mean to offend”- how can people be so fucking thoughtless?!? Maybe honesty would shut her up by why should you have to share your private life with her and your grief?!

I've found the duel income no kids just as insensitive when they brag about "only" going to Bali this year, the irony is some of those people from my past, the ones who told me I was crazy to have kids in my 20's, are struggling with infertility in their 40's

Are you on crack?!?! It’s not the same thing at all ffs what is wrong with you?! How is your smug comment at the end about people struggling with infertility who made fun of you at all appropriate on this thread?!

Jesus Christ.

It's all part and parcel of everyday misogyny. It happens because too many stupid people still have a deep-rooted belief that women are walking incubators and public property so, if they are not actually looking after a child or visibly pregnant, they are fair game for investigation as to whether or not they are serving their proper purpose.

I mean, who asks men repeatedly and in detail if they have kids, are planning kids, or if not, why not?

Are people so blinkered to not be able to imagine for a second that there are other reasons for not having children than not wanting them or “forgetting” to conceive?

Yes. It is as simple as them being blinkered, and quite frankly, thick.

It's nothing to do with general intelligence. Some people really are just on a lower cognitive plane socially. They have neither the ability nor the habit to think about emotions of others, or in the abstract. They just mindlessly witter on, not for one second either thinking that a) not everyone is like themselves or b) that other people have feelings too.

Agree op. Sometimes people really need to engage brain before opening mouth. We are very lucky to have one child but suffer secondary infertility and have to put up with constant, when you having another, ds will be lonely, only children are weird/unsociable/spoilt/the devil incarnate etc. You want more than one.

I have found being brutally honey helps. I just now say, no we can’t have any moreit’s heartbreaking, at times I’ve considered suicide tbh. Although I’m not sure if that’s the secondary infertility or the ptsd from my only child’s birth where we both nearly died and the started to do the c section without anaesthetic. I have a hope it will make them think before asking another woman (and men are never asked this) about the quality of their eggs/womb/hormones or her partners sperm.

It's all part and parcel of everyday misogyny. It happens because too many stupid people still have a deep-rooted belief that women are walking incubators and public property so, if they are not actually looking after a child or visibly pregnant, they are fair game for investigation as to whether or not they are serving their proper purpose

Absolutely.

I'm going to ask DH tonight out of interest when the last time he was asked about having kids was.

TBF DH has been asked a number of times at work when we will have another

Interesting! Out of curiosity, is that by women or male colleagues?

My DH works with just men and I can't picture them discussing when we're going to be having babies etc... !

I'll ask him tonight because I'm genuinely curious as to whether he has to face the same thing.

I agree it's part of misogny and also the expectations of others about what a woman "should" be.

I had a horrible interaction with a woman after a dance class. We both walk in the same direction for a bit while exiting the gym. She asked me "are you married" - no - and "do you have children" - no. So then - and she was clearly in a bad mood when she arrived at the class - she bristled and said "so what, you have NO RESPONSIBILITIES AT ALL?"

and I put that in caps because she practically shouted it.

I actually stopped walking, gave a hard glare and said "well unless you don't count supporting myself, paying the mortgage and looking after an elderly mother, no, no responsibilities whatsoever".

she apologised but I don't even acknowledge her when she comes to class now.

the other thing I wonder about people who say "it's just conversation" - are they really so fucking desperate for conversation that they come out with that shite?!

I’ve been in your shoes (lost 5 babies) before having my living children. I certainly felt upset at these points but I also think the silence around it doesn’t help. When someone said something like “when are you having children or when you have children” etc I started to say “well actually I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. We’ve just lost our x baby to miscarriage”. When I stopped playing the silent dance things felt a lot better for me. My boss reacted kindly. Aquaintances apologised for being insensitive and said they’d be more careful what they say next time, friends offered support.
Overall, I’m really against the mystery 12 week idea because a) pregnancy is super tough in those weeks! B) it adds to this sense that miscarriage should be kept a secret.

Obviously it’s always your choice to keep information private but it shouldn’t be the default and I no longer play by those rules.

I have been nagged (yes, nagged) by my DH's grandad. Just me, not his grandson.

As I said upthread though, MIL is a cracker in this department. Last time he harangued me about having kids, she said, "What, on her own?". I think she doesn't want me avoiding their end of town to get away from the nosey git.

I'm going to ask DH tonight out of interest when the last time he was asked about having kids was.

I asked this from mine. We've been married for 16 years, and he says he's been asked once. Someone he was quite friendly with at work as about to become a dad, and had apparently asked if we'd ever thought about kids. He told him that yes, but sadly it wasn't going to happen. No further questions, and no one else seems to have been interested in his reproduction or lack of.

I agree with you. My friend had cancer when she was in her mid 20s and the treatment left her infertile.

She gets comments along the lines of “oh I wish I’d been a bit more selfish and not had kids, then I could go on all these holidays like you do”. It’s disgusting, she would have loved to have had kids but circumstances meant that she couldn’t.

Ivy that's terrible.

I don't get the mindset that having children is the height of selflessness.

I mean, I get it and I want to be able to do it too so I'm not judging but if you actually look at it, it's far more selfish to the already over populated and struggling planet/environment to have children than to not.

Imo, it’s goes on about children all the way through from infertility, the pregnancy (comments in supermarkets about its due any day now...), breastfeeding versus bottle, the behaviour of the children in public...

We had IVF twins and were asked by complete strangers if we had had sex twice that night?

Very few people would ask strangers how much they earn; so why the complete disconnect between brain and mouth on anything to do with children?

But everyone has issues that they’d rather not be reminded of or that deviate from ‘the norm’.

My mum died when I was 19. For the last 20 years there hasn’t been more than a week where someone hasn’t referred to ‘your mum’ and I either have to explain/ignore etc.

‘Does your mum have the baby when you’re at work!’
‘I bet your mum loves her grandsons’
‘Do you want to bring your mum to the mother and daughter cinema event?’

Yada yada yada.

There are childless people, bereaved people, unemployed people, sick people, estranged people etc.

I think resilience is more important as it concentrates on the things you can control rather than other people.

I’m sorry you’re going through such a shorty time OP, but you can take control.

‘I’m not ‘boss’ - I’d actually rather you didn't ask that please - I’m experiencing some challenges around pregnancy and will let you know if the time comes’

No details, no drama, just facts.

Merry, it's not just/not so much general comments that people are objecting to, it's the judging. 'You’ve never known love until you have your own kids’. 'I don't know what I did with my time before I had them.' 'If I didn't have kids, then I could go on all these holidays like you do.' etc etc.